Chaudhry Abdul Majeed

Chaudhry Abdul Majeed (born 1937; ) was a Pakistani nuclear chemist, nuclear weapon and reactor expert. He is known as one of the pioneers of Pakistan's nuclear weapon programme, and has worked closely with former Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) Chairman Munir Ahmad Khan's plutonium reprocessing project. He rose to prominence when he was apprehended by Pakistan's intelligence agencies in a joint operation in late October 2001. Majeed was also one of the founding members of Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood's Ummah Tameer-e-Nau organisation; an NGO which caused an international embarrassment for Pakistan.

Education Majeed was educated in Lahore, Punjab, British Indian Empire. In 1955, he attended University of Engineering and Technology of Lahore, and took a double Bachelor of Science (BSc) in mathematics and chemistry in 1959. The same year, he was admitted to the High-Tension Laboratory, a physics department for advanced courses in Nuclear sciences, at the Government College University, where he gained his Master of Science (MSc) in nuclear chemistry.

In 1964, Majeed went to Belgium on a scholarship awarded by PAEC and attended Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, from which he received his Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) in Nuclear Chemistry in 1968. He continued his academic research at the plutonium facility in Belgium in the late 1960s. Majeed received training at the Tihange and Doel nuclear facilities in Belgium.

Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission Majeed returned to Pakistan in 1974 after India had conducted a surprise nuclear test, codenamed "Pokhran-I". At the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) he was assigned to the Nuclear Chemistry Division led by Iqbal Hussain Qureshi. In 1974, Majeed was a part of Munir Ahmad Khan's team that had supervised the criticality of the second nuclear pile —PARR-II reactor. Throughout the 1990s, Majeed was responsible for underground work of the nuclear reactor Khushab-I, and the CHASNUPP-I commercial nuclear power plant. Due to his work for the State, he was conferred with the Tamgha-e-Imtiaz awarded by the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, in 1998.

The first interrogation of the two Pakistani scientists concluded that Mahmood and Majeed did not know enough to help build a nuclear weapon. "These two guys were nuclear scientists who didn't know how to build one themselves," the American official said. "If you had to have guys go bad, these are the guys you'd want. They didn't know much."

Aftermath and legacy

He was harshly interrogated for a long time, which also resulted in his death. Bashir Syed, former President of the Association of Pakistani Scientists and Engineers of North America (APSENA), said: "I know both of these persons and can tell you there is not an iota of truth that both these respected scientists and friends will do anything to harm the interest of their own country."